The invention relates generally to high voltage connectors and more specifically to high voltage single conductor plugs and sockets having cooperating and retaining ribs and recesses.
The requirements of high voltage connectors, especially for military applications, are both stringent and mutually exclusive. On the one hand, inasmuch as connectors are utilized in circuits operating at voltages of 10 kilovolts to 20 kilovolts and higher and are expected to exhibit extraordinary reliability, the obvious solution is to design large, heavy and durable connectors and housings. However, a typical and in fact frequent design parameter acknowledges the close quarters often encountered in installations and requires minimum package size. Another demands operation at high altitudes and correspondingly low atmospheric pressures. The existence of such conflicting design parameters requires understanding of the precise nature of a given interconnection application as well as ingenuity on behalf of the design engineer.
One early patent addressing the difficulties of connector integrity in high voltage circuits operating at reduced atmospheric pressure and/or high altitude is U.S. Pat. No. 2,448,509. Here, tapered and interengaging insulators are utilized about a single conductor. Another device using somewhat similar frusto-conical interengaging insulators is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,514,741.
More contemporary single conductor high voltage, anti-corona connectors which provide plural atmospheric seals or barriers between the current carrying contacts of the connector and the ambient are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,994,553 and 4,605,272.
High voltage connectors which are concerned with small package size are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,842,393 and 4,417,736.
A review of the foregoing patents, especially the latter two, reveals that while they apparently provide high voltage operating characteristics in small package sizes, the overall plug structure and retaining components occupy significant volume relative to the current carrying components. Therefore, improvements in the art of small high voltage connectors having commensurately small, sophisticated and well designed retention components are both desirable and possible.